Well just had another mishap with my light falling when i was adding more flouros. Bent one of my definite females and the one still not showing pretty good but no snappage or breaking of any stem or leaf so hoping for a recovery. Btw i think the fact that i watered a day ago made them more resilient to the light hitting them which should have crushed em but they bounced back pretty good instead.
Morning update was a relief both that were bent are now standing upright with only a slight lean so hopefully it wont stress em out to bad.
Hey Pandamo, Just read thru your journal and I'm surprised you've gotten so much growth with such little initial input, lighting/reflection, and without amending your Roots Organic! Not to mention the fact that you seem the be throwing your lights at the kids haha. Good work! You should have amended the Roots Organic, but it's too late for that now, so you can top dress it with EWC and kelp for sure. You can also make kelp/EWC slurries, and water them in to achieve the same result. In regards EWCs, the best EWCs is homegrown, but Buildasoil.com is a good place to buy them from if you can, otherwise u can go to a big box store(Home Depot, etc.) and get something that had a little less care for it, but still won't be useless. And you asked about that nug, if it looked like SSH, and IMO it's kinda hard to tell, but I'd say no if forced to tell. It looks like something heavy indica if you ask me, but it's really hard to tell given how stuff is compressed these days, to be moved around the country you know.. How did it smoke? Was it a SOARING head high with a nice body high too? Super Silver is one of my FAV strains given its effect Get ready to run into problems tho, as your plants run outta the goods, but don't worry about too much. You're missing your humus sources(compost/vermicompost/humus/peat/EWCs), so you're relying totally on the life in the Roots Organic, which I'm assuming is a percentage of Peat? These micro organisms you need alive in you're soil, to nourish your plants, are introduced to the soil in the adequate numbers via your humus source and you're missing that..Other than the percentage of peat in their recipe(. Given that fact, you're soil isn't working as best it can. Adding a compost/EWC top dress to all your plants will help you. If you can find some dank(homegrown) vermicompost, you might never even notice you didn't amend that soil in the end. But a nice top dress is def. needed and should hit the spot in a few weeks. And Molasses is STRONG. It's a very nutrient dense supplement, and it will throw things outta wack where the roots live. I experimented using up to a tbsp per gallon in AACT's a couple years back, and noticed the plants did better being left alone, vs being "tea'd" up all the time. I would say like iGrow said, leave it for the teas...You're mix hasn't been amended, so I'm not sure how much that Molasses is even helping, but you've got some nice green growth up top, so I'm tempted to suggest you carry on using it how you've been lol. Compost Teas will help supply your soil with life tho, deepening on how you brew them...See Microbeorganics.com But as long as you've got nice green growth up top, that's saying that you're micronutrients are in line...All the things the plant's barely need, they're getting..When the bottom growth is dying while the top is looking good, it's saying that you have something out of wack with your Macronutrients, which are N,P,K,Ca,Mg, and S, nutrients that the plant uses more than just a bit of, or it means your light is a limiting factor, amongst other things...Be sure to take care when you order that 600w too. If you've never used one, the temps they get up to are kinda shocking, so unless you can get an air cooled hood and vent that hot air outta your room, you're temp are gonna jump at least 10F. And ou didn't ask for it, but as far as some advice goes(things you can do without spending money): you could strip the lowest 3-4inches of all your plants, and focus your CFLs more on the canopy. You can have them less than 2" away from your plants, and they won't burn. CFLs aren't doing much for our plants when they're further than 4" away, and I'm assuming that also applies for T5 tubes..Move the CFLs closer. You should have to move them up everyday during this part of your grow, the "stretching phase" which is right around the corner if not upon you already. A mulch......With all the leaves that die....let them dry out(or not) to the point that you can easily crumble them, then sprinkle them along the tops of your pots. Return everything you remove from the soil(look up Von Liebig's Law of minimum). You need a mulch for SEVERAL reasons, one of the most important being to maintaining a hospitable rhizosphere, which'll foster life that'll help you're plants get access the nutrients they require. Visit a forest nearby without any roads adjacent, and collect some litter. I'm following along from now on, to see how you're plants progress with the "bare minimum". I'm working with a minimalist approach right now myself, so i'm anxious to see what happens with you over here! Good luck *Passes you the Chemdawg joint
For sure man! There's not enough time in the day for all the learning that I need to do. Anything helps. Ps, I have little journal too. I'm small timing at the moment as I'm in between places, but you're welcomed to check it out. I'm gonna put a link in my signature now.
Lobbed it up bro! Ain't nothing special right now tho. I'm living in an apartment for the next 6 months, so I'm working under those constraints you know? Can't do with the HID light, due to the ambience created by the fans and such, so currently, my lighting is my limiting factor. But anyways, cool bro, I'll be around
I actually decided against the hid and just put more flouros so im running like 125 actual for each girl and if the one thats undetermined pops some balls itll be more like 180-190 watt per girl so all in all i think itll be a successful low maintenance all organic first grow.
Also if your growing anything in an apartment im sure watever you get out of it can be considered a success especially with the extra security issues with maintenance personel and random walk arounds being nosey but a good carbon scrub should make it less frightening. I was originally going to try a grow in my last residence which was a low income apartment complex literally always have police arrests all year long so it deterred me till i got a house. Now its smooth sailing. Anyways definite props on ur apartment op bro.
Cool cool. I got thru my first harvest without any HID light, and ended up with a little over 14oz dry, between 3 plants that vegged for a month, and 5 that went 12/12 from seed, so I know you can pull it off nicely. You also get some UV from the CFLs, barely any yeah, but if you can keep em' like 2" away at all times, they do work! I actual bought a couple of 150w HPS towards the end, but I'd much rather have not spent that cash, as they didn't do any better than a gang of CFLs... Right now I've got three 125w CFLs in my tent atm which is a little bigger than 3x3, and they're no more than 6" away from all bud sites. If you can't feel the heat of the lamps when you place your fingers between the plants and the lights cool. Try and surround your plants with the CFLs like you've already done. As mush side lighting as you can use will help you brother. I think I had over 50 23w(100w equiv) CFLs at once haha. LMK if you want a link to that grow and I'll PM you. It's on another forum and I don't wanna advertise that forum here, but I can link you to if. There's lots of knowledge to take away from that thread as it was my first run, so you can imagine me soaking it all up, and talking it like I know it haha. But if you don't want to be linked to it, just disregard that I even mentioned it bro And yeah man, this will be the third apartment that I've pulled it off in, it's just that with this particular one, I can hear my neighbor above me when this person snores and walks around(granted this person's about 500lbs) lol, so I'm just curious asto what the guy below me can hear you know? I'd rather be safe than sorry. In the last apartment I was on the top in a city that didn't have helicopters haha, so it was lovely man, and I NEVER heard the neighbors... And hell yeah man, I wouldn't grow in a low income area either, simply bcuz of all the moving components you know. It's not get ratted on that I would worry about in those areas lol, but rather someone else nearby doing something to bring me the heat haha. I grew in a mixed income area last year, at the start of the year, and someone ran in some woman's house and raped her about 45 secs away walking...Next thing you know the chopper was out...Next thing you know, the chopper was out again....and again...and closer....and closer....Until it was time to yank and chill! I lost ALL the seed I'd made myself crossing strains.. I think I was depressed for a good month..And I don't get depressed lol. I'm a mind over matter type. Bnd this happened after about a 6wk veg, maybe in the first week of flower.. And they wanted $1800 to break that lease....Fuggedaboutit... Lesson learned, don't put your tent by your window, no matter where you are.
Pic update. First pic canopy update lookin good. Last two pics biggest most lush lady of the bunch (side note strangely enough its one of the younger plants of the bunch) standing 27 and a half inches tall and im gonna guess itll stop at about to 3 and a half feet but who knows.
Dude definitely pass that link my way im constantly googling cfl grows love to be inspired by other gardens!
Btw got another little experiment going with a branch that was damaged from when my light fell last. Went ahead and tryed to make it my first clone. Figured it wont really matter since i expected it to die anyway. This way atleast i will be able to test out its resilience and if a damaged branch(had some browning and tearage in the middle of the stem where it was bent by the light.) So i cut it off and put it in some used soil i didnt mind wasting( also what im using for my new beans untill they out grow their dixie cups)then covered it and proped it up better with a clear plastic cup(that im using as a humidity dome)and misted it before covering. Will update with a pic tonight with hopefully some improvement made.
Dosnt look like theres any improvment but also no worsening visible. Still bright green with the leaves ans stems still looking new.